


Like Light through Amber

by greenlikethec



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: BAMF Tina Goldstein, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, I write fluff not tragedies, Movie 1: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Oblivious Newt, Post-Movie 1: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 22:08:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15805512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenlikethec/pseuds/greenlikethec
Summary: One shot post-fantastic beasts 1. Maybe a series later? I know others have Newt gardening -- but I wanted to explore Newt's inner life a little more. Hopefully no one will think that I have copied as I have tried hard not to.





	Like Light through Amber

There were times when Newt preferred to do things the Muggle way. He could distract himself by putting his hands to use in a way that he could not when performing magic. He looked at the clock perched above his desk. It was past seven thirty. He felt a thrill of anger pulse (quickly followed by guilt for having felt angry) through him sharply. As he turned his heel to continue pacing on the groaning floorboards of the shed, his head popped up and his eyes stopped on the herb garden. That’ll do it, he thought. Sitting on his knees, rooting through his herb bed for the pesky heads of weeds, he felt his stomach begin to unclench and his heart slow down. He could have just said a few simple spells, or found that weeding potion in his old herbology book again, but – if he could admit it to himself – he needed the distraction. He chided himself. You’re behaving so foolishly, he said to himself. They’ve been nothing but kind. What did you expect by your coming here? He breathed in deeply, relaxing more deeply as the scent of damp earth wafted up around him. He was grateful to Tina and Queenie. He really was. It was so kind of them to offer up their home to him on this New York visit.

There were times when Newt preferred to do things the Muggle way. He could distract himself by putting his hands to use in a way that he could not when performing magic. He looked at the clock perched above his desk. It was past seven thirty. He felt a thrill of anger pulse (quickly followed by guilt for having felt angry) through him sharply. As he turned his heel to continue pacing on the groaning floorboards of the shed, his head popped up and his eyes stopped on the herb garden. _That’ll do it_ , he thought. Sitting on his knees, rooting through his herb bed for the pesky heads of weeds, he felt his stomach begin to unclench and his heart slow down. He could have just said a few simple spells, or found that weeding potion in his old herbology book again, but – if he could admit it to himself – he needed the distraction. He chided himself. _You’re behaving so foolishly_ , he said to himself. _They’ve been nothing but kind. What did you expect by your coming here?_ He breathed in deeply, relaxing more deeply as the scent of damp earth wafted up around him. He was grateful to Tina and Queenie. He really was. It was so kind of them to offer up their home to him on this New York visit. 

But everything had been simpler when he all the contact he had had with Tina was through letters. It was all so much easier on paper. He could take an hour or two to write a single letter and discard all of the ones he thought weren’t right. He could be charming, self-effacing, and as removed as he needed to be. Removed in a way he could not be when she was standing right in front of him, when her smile was so bright, hopeful, or expectant. Or when she came close enough to almost touch him – like this morning when all she had been doing was reaching over his shoulder for the other half of the newspaper sitting in front of him before she turned to head out for work and the smell of her (like lavender soap intermingled with wild honey) floated past him – now his stomach lurched with the memory of it. 

He had suddenly leaned away. Her hand paused, inches from his own. It was then that his own fingers inadvertently jumped, as if to saying, _you could just reach out_. He remembered that Queenie was sitting at the table with him. He forced his mind to stay blank, but he couldn’t will the small twinge of hope he felt to disappear as he heard Tina’s coat swish closer to him. Queenie’s head shot up. _Merlin,_ he thought as a wave of shame washed over him. Tina was still leaning over him, and was close enough that if he had wanted to (which he did) he could have just turned his head and kissed her (which he many times in his head).But by now, Tina had found the part of the newspaper she had wanted, the headline news, of course, and she was retreating. “See you tonight, then,” she had called out while walking towards the door. “Don’t work too late like you usually do,” Queenie responded, automatically, and then she spotted the time. “Hey, ain’t ya gonna wait for me?” She got up from her chair with a scrape to run into the next room to grab her bag. Instead of watching this hasty movement, Newt’s head had followed Tina’s back. She had paused midway through opening the door, and now spun around to wait for her sister. She looked straight into Newt’s eyes. Contrary to what he usually did, he met her eyes and held them. She was breathing like she had just been running. He felt a thrill go through his body. He stood up, still looking at her, as if to go to her. 

Queenie ran back into the room. She looked at her sister, and then threw Newt a wide-eyed look. He put a hand on the back of the chair he just got up from and looked at his wool-socked feet. “Have a good day, both of you,” he said, turning to grab his breakfast dishes. Of the two sisters, Queenie was the one who answered. “Thanks, Newt. You can leave the dishes for us.” He looked up through his fringe and smiled at her shyly. “It really isn’t a problem. You both do so much for me.” It was true but he felt his stomach tighten.

“Well, then, thank you again,” she said, smiling, as she left. 

Tina stood there, with her hand still on the doorknob. She looked like she wanted to say something. As their eyes met again, he felt the same charge as earlier. He turned to her, his hands in his pockets and his back straight. His body spoke for him. _Whenever you choose to come to me, I’m here_. _I’m right here._

Tina’s eyes went wide. Her lips opened – 

“Teen! We’re late!” 

Both of their eyes flicked downstairs. 

“Bye,” she croaked as she looked at the floor and shoved the newspaper into the crook of her arm. He didn’t have a chance to respond before the door slammed behind her. 

Just thinking about it again, Newt’s nose tingled with the remembered smell of her and his heart beat rapidly. _Get yourself in hand, Newton_ , he scolded himself for the hundredth time that day. He pulled the offending weed in front of him rather roughly and tossed it aside. After the sisters had left, he had taken a quick walk down to the market, where he had bought a few of the beautiful peaches that the Muggle street vendors were displaying under the bright light of that summer’s morning. He had wandered a little down the lanes of this open air market until he saw some truly magnificent tomatoes. They were deep reds and dark purples, so completely unlike the paltry tomatoes of England, and some were even beginning to split under their own ripeness. He didn’t think of Dougal, the Demiguise, who was surprisingly partial to tomatoes, even though they were not native to his habitat in the slightest. Instead he thought about coming to this very market only a few days ago with Tina and Queenie. It had been a rare moment for Tina. For the first time in a long while that he had seen her, she seemed unburdened and her footsteps were light. Laughingly, Tina had brought these tomatoes up to her face. She had inhaled deeply, subtly closing her beautiful eyes. Then he remembered how she had turned her head slowly, and gently opened those eyes on his. How those eyes had looked exactly like light through amber. How he had thought of waking up with those eyes softly opening every morning. How suddenly he had felt stricken by the idea of not. 

He walked away from the market with two paper bags full of peaches and tomatoes. When back at the apartment, he filled two bowls with each. Now remembering Dougal, he picked up a particularly ripe tomato for him (and a peach for himself for later). He lowered himself into his case, and he had been here for rest of the day. 

Before he had even met Tina, Queenie, or Jacob, he had planned on releasing Frank into the Arizona desert. After fulfilling that promise, he had hoped to explore the American wilderness. This trip, he had come back not just to deliver the book to Tina but to also complete that endeavor. Newt’s network had given him a whisper of something new in the heart of the Appalachian mountains, and he could not deny that he was itching to see if it was idle gossip or something he had truly never seen before. Even if there truly was no new or undiscovered creature, there was still so much that he did not know about the particulars of various American species, such as the wild American centaurs. The idea of being able to dedicate time to a thorough study gave Newt a renewed excitement in his book. It would be an ideal time to do so, especially now that his publisher was already asking if Newt could discover at least five more “beasts” to put into the next edition of the book.

He suddenly felt irritable and overly heated. Though his hands were covered in dirt, he picked at his shirt’s buttons sharply and flung it away without looking where it landed. _Publishers_ , a voice in the back of his mind grumbled. The likelihood that a Magizoologist stumble over a new creature even if he or she had wanted to was slim to none. It was therefore imperative that he at least try. But if he were to admit it to himself, he was excited to have a challenge once more. 

He shifted upwards and rolled his shoulders, releasing a crick in his neck. The case’s sun warmed his back in a pleasant way and he smiled. He could begin to feel a sense of inner peace begin to run through his limbs. The last time he had felt so at ease with the sun on his back had been the summer he spent in Egypt after the war when he had been asked to treat a potentially dying sphinx who was too close to a Muggle town for the local magical enforcement’s comfort. After he had arrived, the Egyptian magical force had taken him to the spot where the sphinx was hiding. They had told him that young male sphinx was particularly vicious. They had called him because it turned out that they had heard the story of Newt calming a particularly enraged Ukrainian Ironbelly dragon before it had the chance to crush the unwitting Magizoologist (and the rest of the people in the building) who had taken its eggs away for further study. The sedative that they had given the Ironbelly had done nothing to dim its mothering instincts and though the Ironbelly had seemed to succumb, it opened one blood red eye right as the Magizoologist had gathered the eggs. If Newt were ever to tell the story, which he would only do if someone else had asked him to, he would only say that he had kept this particular Ironbelly calm until the sedative had truly done its work. Other witnesses would say that they had been convinced that they would be crushed under the enormous weight of a livid six ton mother, until Newt walked into her enclosure. As they did watched, their horror turned into astonishment as Newt gradually calmed her down enough to even place his hand on her snout. Then the room filled with a shocked silence when he did. No one had ever dared touch her – or any of the other dragons – before.

But, of course, as stories travel, the local Egyptian magical task force told Newt the story of how he had hand fed a feisty Hungarian Horntail pieces of goat as it had its tail constricted around him and, through doing so, had thereby convinced it that he was not as tasty a meal. Newt had smiled at his boots. But he did not correct them. He would have thenhad to tell the real story and he did not think it particularly worth mentioning. 

When the small group had finally come to the sphinx, Newt found him to be gravely injured. He had been enlisted to protect an intricate underground maze of a paranoid smuggler wizard who regularly abused him when he thought that the sphinx’s riddles were not complex enough. (It was rare for Newt to fly into a rage, or even to shout. But when they found the man, after a months of staking him out, Newt lost his head when the man was being interrogated by the police. The memory of it makes Newt wince and fills him with self-shame.) In some ways it had been one of the most irritating cases he had ever been on. The sphinx would only trust Newt after Newt had sufficiently answered enough riddles. Newt spent a solid week answering riddles and crouched near the sphinx, his heart aching to help the hurt sphinx (who had a broken rib or two). “I am not alive but seem so, because I dance and breathe with no lungs or legs of my own. What could I be?” He wheezed. Newt sighed, and said, knowing it was futile, “Please let me help you.” He snapped his jaws at Newt and then whimpered at the pain of having moved. “You are underweight and dehydrated. You may not live in two week’s time.” He looked into his eyes. “Do you understand me?” The sphinx panted. “I’m not alive but seem so – ”

It had taken Newt a day or two to figure it out, but when he did, he carefully walked up to the sphinx’s hiding place with his wand and case in hand. “Before you speak,” he had said, “it’s a flame. A fire dances without breathing. Now please no more riddles. Let’s see to it that you recover as speedily as you can.” The sphinx smiled grimly at him, but for the next two weeks, the sphinx let Newt nurse him and did not so much as wince as Newt treated the damage.

Reflecting on it, it had been a remarkable experience. He had learned so much about the physiology of this incredible creature. The corner of Newt’s mouth pulled into a smile as he remembered that it had been bizarre to have the sphinx ask if Newt had anything worth protecting, as Newt had solved his riddles, after all, and the sphinx felt himself to be beholden to Newt. Instead, Newt had asked if the sphinx could answer questions that Newt had about sphinxes. They had made a deal that Newt could only ask a certain number of questions before the sphinx loped off. After that, Newt had never seen him again. The experience made him yearn to be back learning from and caring for creatures he never would have dreamed seeing before. While the sun on his back reminded him of that, it also suggested that there were many more adventures left to be had. 

One more, Newt felt his frustration rise, as he scooped up the weeds to put into the compost. What was he doing lingering here? He had been waiting two weeks to spend even five minutes with Tina. And tonight she still hadn’t come home. 

Eventually, he realized that he was more angry with himself than anyone else. When he looked back at the events of this morning again with a clear head, he saw himself in a different light. When Tina had closed her eyes at the market and then turned and opened them on his, he had been the one to look away quickly and mumble about artichokes. When he looked back at her, she had turned her back on him and was laughing quietly with Queenie. But, he had missed a chance to connect with her and he felt that loss. He realized that Tina wasn’t being unnecessarily cruel. He was the one keeping himself from what he really wanted. She might even be staying away because she did not know how to speak to him. She might have felt that she had given him chances to open up to her and now was confused and hurt as to why he resisted. He might have been too much in his own head even to notice the effort.

He sighed and grabbed the shovel. He went over to his compost pile and began to take small shovels full back to the herb garden. Soon he could feel the sweat dripping down his back. He quickly wiped the back of his hand across his upper cheek. When there was enough new dirt on the bed, he sharply stuck the shovel back into the earth, and sat down to spread it evenly over the plants. This time, kneeling down, he was resolved on what he needed to do, and how he should behave. Gradually, he began to hum to himself. 

When he was almost finished, a thought struck him. He took the peach pit from his pocket, unwrapped it from its handkerchief/napkin home, and planted it into the ground. 

Now exhausted, he plucked his wand from his side and conjured a rain cloud over the bed. As the rain fell, he stuck his hands and watched as the dirt ran off. He stepped away when the rivulets that ran around each plant began to creep towards his boots. He wiped his hands on the side of his pants and reached down to pluck his long forgotten shirt. His might floated back to Tina. Perhaps she might be home now…

He ended the rain spell, satisfied with his work. He was watching the raincloud dissipate when he heard something in the distance behind him. At first, he thought it was just the Erumphent braying in her habitat. Then he heard a regular footfall coming in his direction. After years of being with the Demiguise, who loved to sneak up on Newt when he least expected it, his senses had become well-tuned to the possibility of being suddenly surprised. But then the footsteps stopped short. He turned. 

There was Tina. “I was calling for you.” 

“Oh,” he smiled softly, “so that it was you.” 

She looked very self-conscious. Then her face turned bright red after she looked down at his torso for a moment. He blushed too and decided to put the shirt on even though he was still overly warm. “I – I hope you don’t mind. I didn’t mean to barge in but you weren’t answering, you see –“

“You are always welcome here. I am sorry if I didn’t make that clear before.” Her eyes grew large for a second but she blinked rapidly and passed a hand through her hair. “I’m glad to see you’re back.” His voice was calm and low. 

“Um. Uh. Did you eat anything?” 

“No, I don’t believe I have.” He was still smiling. He took a step towards her. She truly looked lovely in the light. Her hair was rimmed by the sun as it began to drift towards the horizon. He could see that, like her eyes, there was a gradation in her hair between light and dark brown. Her shoulders relaxed as he came nearer. He stood as close to her as he dared.

“Well, uh, neither have I. Should we rustle something up?”

“Is Queenie not here?”

“No, she’s not. She, um, has a date tonight.” Suddenly, Tina couldn’t meet his eyes for a moment. 

“Mm. Well, I hope she has a wonderful time, then.” Newt truly liked Queenie. Yet, if he were to be honest, if the man wasn’t Jacob, then Newt was not particularly interested in speaking of it further. He had seen the way that Queenie’s eyes had lit up when she saw Jacob, and vice versa. He knew that immediate spark could not be easily replaced. Until he had come to New York, he himself hadn’t felt it in a long time.

Tina looked up again into Newt’s face. She laughed quietly and took a step toward him. “You have some dirt on your face.” Her eyes were filled with a good-natured humor. “I’m sure I do,” he replied, his eyes sparkling similarly. 

Though he barely expected it, he found Tina’s hand suddenly reaching for his own. He grasped it and gave it a small squeeze. It was the first time that it had ever happened, but the movement felt so natural to both that neither felt it was strange. She laughed quietly again, and Newt turned his head to her with an eyebrow raised. “I see that’s not the only place where you have dirt on you.” 

“I’m sorry. Does it bother you?” 

“Not at all.” 

Their heads were coming close together now, and their conversation had dropped to a whisper. Both were breathing as if they had just been running instead of speaking. Maybe it was the earlier memory of being in Egypt, caring for a creature that he had marked as “dangerous” in his own book that helped Newt say what he said next.

“Ms. Goldstein,” he said quietly, his free hand passing a thumb across her cheek, “may I kiss you?” The thought _now or never_ flit through his mind _._

Her eyes went wide and she looked very vulnerable for a moment. She nodded briefly before pressing her lips sweetly into his. 

It was like nothing else he had experienced in his life. When he spoke to Tina about it, much later, she said that it had felt to her as if it were the first time that it was happening but also “like I had been doing it my whole life. Like I would be doing it for the rest of my life. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.” He agreed with her. It did feel like that. He had also never felt something so wholly right.

When the kiss broke, he pulled back and looked into her eyes. Possibly for the first time, he knew that he wanted more, so much more, but he could feel her hand shaking in his. He knew it wouldn’t be right to do more without her wanting it too. Luckily for them both, Tina smiled, put her other hand on his cheek, and leaned in again. This time, he dared to kiss her a little longer, and a little deeper. 

When they pulled away this time, he looked at her cheek and laughed softly. 

“I’m so sorry.” 

“Why’s that?”

“I’m afraid I’ve gotten dirt all over you.”

“Funny. You don’t seem that sorry." 

He grinned. “Perhaps not. Do you mind it?”

“Not at all.” They shared a laugh, and, still smiling, Tina touched her nose to his. He closed his eyes and breathed her in. They stayed like this for a few long moments. One of her hands on his cheek, the other in his hand. His hand on the small of her back, the other in her hand. He opened his eyes, smiled, and together they decided to turn back into the shed. Newt looked down, pleased that he was still holding her hand. 

Tina asked, quietly, “Why now?”

“I couldn’t waste any more time.” 

“Why, Mr. Scamander, are you going someplace?” 

He ducked his head to the side. “Urm. Well, Tina, I had rather thought –”

“Oh! So, is this what you do with all the girls? Kiss and then just up and leave ‘em, huh?” 

He looked at her face quickly. Her tone had been light but her head was away from him. He said, quickly, “Not a bit.” He bit his cheek. There was so much he could say, but this felt tenuous enough. He didn’t want to scare her away. She pulled her hand away from his and suddenly stopped. 

“And when exactly were you going to tell me about this?” All the humor was gone from her voice. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you thought & if you'd like to see more of this!


End file.
